"Valkyrie" rated tbc at Openair Cinema Sydney

After some internet drama I was able to book the annual sojourn to the Openair at 'Mrs Macquarie's Chair' in Sydney. We've been going along once or twice each season since it began in 1997. It's a brilliant night out with certain quirky features:

• It's a temporary grandstand with tiered seating of locked together sebel plastic chairs where the screen is on two pylons in the harbour and the hydraulics haul it into place at 8.15pm for a series of arty adverts [one year even an actual boat on the water featured alongside an ad]
  
• You must pre-book and arrive before 6pm [it wasn't always so popular but since St George took over from Phillips as major sponsor and as word got around you now have to have a system to get your dinner table and the best seats]
  
• Watch as various punters: get in the wrong queue, try to sneak in to the shortest line, attempt to sneak in bottles of wine, entertain those nearby with stories of rich relatives, their season tickets at the STC, anecdotes from the last 11 years of lining up, or repeatedly need to phone their slack friends who've let them line up for 2 hours only to arrive just as 'gates open'
  
• One of us heads straight for the seat markers and the less well known left stairs with free Lindt chocolate in hand, the other charges up to the dinner tables to reserve a space where there's not enough for all despite a recent expansion
  
• We choose to sit in the centre on an aisle with the crossover aisle right behind us so when we lean back it isn't into someone elses lap or dinner
  
• With seat markers in place we choose bangers and mash, thai beef noodles or fish n chips from Belinda Franks caterers by tagging at the long tables and then proceed to eat as slowly as possible, adding coffee and drinks so as to divert the seagullers trying to guilt you into giving up your table
  
• Only when absolutely necessary we move to our seats with extra softdrinks stowed, newspapers and magazines aplenty and take one more photo of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge in the background
  
• Rain ponchos are distributed on the rare occasion rain is possible [needed twice in eleven years]
  
• Choose a movie under 2 hours or thereabouts if possible because of the seats


• Having parked across from the entrance by circling the headland we are well placed at movie end to retry the side stairs, hustle up the hill and getaway quickly with a stop in 20-30mins for a softdrink or snack proior to the 2 hour drive home!!


• "One year" we say "we must try out the Moonlight Cinema at Centennial Park where you take your own deckchair."

For 2009 we managed to secure tix for "Valkyrie" the reason for Tom Cruise spooky Beatlesesque hair cut 18 months ago. It's based on the story of the attempt by insiders to kill Adolf Hitler and the names besides Cruise give me some cause to think it'll be a good film.

Click the title or go here to check it out http://valkyrie.unitedartists.com/